Musical Entropy
by FrenchyBaguette
Summary: Michael Jackson and Prince fight witches in the Madoka Magica universe. Inspired by the fact that they remind me of mahou shojos and I like making pop stars suffer. It takes place during the thriller era.
1. Chapter 1

Michael: Wow! That was close! Thanks for getting me out of that tight spot again, Prince! I really appre-

Prince: HOW THE FUCK HAVEN'T YOU DIED YET?! You've been doing this a lot longer than I have! You should be helpin' MY ass out of these witch fights, not me!

He shouted at Michael, causing Michael to flinch a little

Michael: I'm sorry, I'm just always really busy, you know? I don't have time to actually practice on strengthening my powers. I only use them to fight witches, not really for much else.

Prince looked at him surprised.

Prince: You don't even use them when you're performing?

Michael: No.

This revelation made him feel guilty, considering that his wish was to be a better skilled musician at any instrument. Most of the talent he acquired was from his magic, it's not that NONE of it was natural talent, but a lot of it was magic.

Prince: I'm sorry, Michael, I know how much that means to you, but still, we gotta help you get stronger. We need to find a way to make time for you to practice. I'm not always gonna be around to protect you, you understand? You chose this destiny of fighting witches despite knowing it would cut into your career and you need to own up and take responsibility.

Michael looks down at the ground, embarrassed from being lectured like a child, then looks back up at Prince.

Michael: OK, but then why do you always come and help me? Why do you always rescue me?

Prince's eyes widened and he looked down at the ground, trying to suppress the rush of blood to his face. He's grateful that it's dark out. He looks back to Michael.

Prince: it's nothing, we're friends, right? Allies in music and magic and all that shit.

Michael: yeah…

Prince looks back down at the ground again awkwardly and puts his hands in his pockets.

Prince: So…do you see the grief seed anywhere? It's so fucking dark in here.

Michael: No, I don't see it. Maybe that was a familiar we fought.

Prince: Impossible! That thing was too huge and tough to be just a familiar.

They search the cold hard cement floor. They were in an abandoned warehouse. It was enormous. The grief seed could have dropped anywhere.

Michael: I found it!

Michael shouted from across the warehouse. Prince ran toward the sound of his voice. Michael is on the floor between two old larger machines with the found grief seed and prince leans down.

Michael: Do you wanna split it?

Prince looks at Michael's soul gem, and then looks at his own. Michael's looked like it needed it a lot more than Prince's.

Prince: I'll be OK, I got plenty of grief seeds to spare, but right now you look like you need it a lot more than I do, just look at your soul gem.

Michael's was indeed much darker than Prince's.

Michael: Well, alright.

Michael clears up his soul gem and they help each other up and exit the warehouse together.

Prince: How much you wanna bet that stupid fucking space cat is on his way right now for his little despair-flavored cat treat?

Michael: Prince, why do you hate kyubey so much? What did he ever do to you?

Prince stops, and looks down at the ground, not wanting Michael to see his face. He wasn't crying, though he was close. Just thinking about it filled his heart with rage, and eyes with heat. He gritted his teeth.

* * *

_Prince could still conciously remember everything, the feeling something was missing, he felt no pain, at least, no where near the pain he should have felt. He could feel everything, and yet he couldn't move. He could feel the blood trickling down his whole body, down his neck, on his back, on his shoulders, down his legs, everywhere._

_The vertebrae of his upper neck was completely exposed, his head decapitated by a witch._

_He was lying there, feeling like he shouldn't still be concious, but it was just a feeling. He couldn't see anything._

_He could feel the power from his soul gem lift him up onto his knees. He could feel bone start to crack and grow, he could feel the flesh from his neck quickly start to regenerate. He feels his skull start to grow back from his neck. The pain is unbearable, he grabs the growing bone but it's pointless. He feels his ears start to grow back so he can hear the cracking of bone back into place, he tries covering his ears but to no avail. He feels his mouth start to regenerate and with all the strength he can muster, he lets out a horrified scream,_

_"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"_

_He feels his eyes quickly start to grow back in his eye sockets and blinks fiercely, he feels blood stream down his face and his hair starts growing back._

_Prince starts to sob, still trying to process what he just experienced. What the hell happened? He should be dead right now, that witch offed him, there was no reason for him to still be alive._

_"W-What am I?!" He whimpers through sobs. He feels his tongue growing in his mouth and the first thing he tastes is iron and salt, from his bloody tears._

_"Look on your hand." a familiar voice calls, it's Kyubey._

_Prince looks on his hand at his soul gem, it's glowing brightly._

_"It was your soul gem that healed you."_

_"B-B-But-But-But..." Prince stutters, struggling to get a word in edgewise._

_"What the hell is this thing?!" He shouts, pointing at his soul gem._

_"It's your body and soul of course."_

_Prince blinks hard, not quite processing what was said, but still hearing it. Then it hits him, his eyes widen slowly. Kyubey continues_

_"Did you think the name Soul Gem was purely for aethetic purposes? Of course it isn't."_

_Prince holds his head with his hands, his black curls in his fists, gradually processing the information as it was presented, but feeling like his sanity would slowly slip away if he continued listening, but still felt like he needed to hear it._

_"When someone makes a contract with me, I rip their soul out of their body, and put it in an easy-to-carry form that makes it a lot easier to keep track of."_

_Prince starts shaking, looking at his hands._

_"The only reason you survived your decapitation was because your soul and body weren't directly connected."_

_Prince's knees start to feel weak, his hands still balled into fists through his hair. He starts to tear up again._

_"That's because the body you used to be housed in is now nothing more than a puppet for the soul gem to control, and because it wasn't damaged during that fight, you were able to heal."_

_He looks up at the emotionless, blank faced creature. He scowls, showing intense fierce anger in his eyes filled with blood and tears mixed together. He gets up and grabs his cloud guitar. He shouts at Kyubey,_

_"SHUT UP!" He uses his magic to manipulate the guitars strings to extend and chase after Kyubey. It tries to run away but the strings are too fast, they catch him and tie him up, getting tighter and tighter in a matter of seconds._

_They squeeze him till he explodes, red flesh splattering everywhere and all through the strings. It doesn't have actual organs, almost like a flesh doll._

_But within seconds, the creature fell from the sky rematerialized, gracefully fell onto his old body's splattered remains, and proceeded to eat them. Prince watches, not quite sure what to do now._

_"*sigh* You humans are all alike, whenever I tell you the simple facts, you all react the same way. It doesn't make any sense..."_

_Prince fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands, trying to contain his crying, but failing._

_"Why does it matter what kind of container your soul is housed in?"_

* * *

Michael: Prince?! Are you listening?!

He snapped out of his flashback, surprised.

Prince: Y-Yeah Mike?

Michael: I said you need to cool it, alright? Kyubey hasn't done anything wrong.

_Prince's eyes widened in shock, he was relieved it was so dark so Mike couldn't see. What was Michael saying?! Didn't he know the truth?!_

Michael: We need kyubey to dispose of used up grief seeds, you don't wanna alienate him, do you?

_It didn't sound like he did._

_Prince's eyes slowly widened in horror the further into the conversation they got. He was grateful that it was so dark out and Michael couldn't see. It was clear that Michael knew nothing of kyubey's true intentions, and he felt worse when he realized that he might want to keep it that way. At least for the time being. He felt bad about doing this but he knew there was no way he wanted to see Michael turn hardened up and cold like he had. Michael was still pure, and he wanted to keep it that way. A little smile formed on his face._

Michael: Prince? Are you listening to me?

Prince: O-Oh, I'm sorry, what did you say?

Michael: I was saying that you need to just chill about kyubey, alright? He hasn't done anything wrong.

Prince swallowed hard, and replied,

Prince: Alright, I'll chill.

Michael smiled, causing him to smile too.

Michael: Ok, good!

And so they continued on with their stroll back home in the dark night. Hoping they wouldn't run into anymore witches on the way.


	2. Chapter 2

Prince shows up to band practice exhausted from the night before, practicing with Michael. Turned out Michael wasn't weak at all, he just throws himself at the witches with little to no regard for his own safety, so they talked about attack strategies and practiced them on witches. They've been doing this for the last couple months, not all the time, but when they'd find the time from their already busy schedules. If his band mates didn't know any better, from the way he looked and was playing, they'd think he was out getting high all night, but they knew about his other commitment, and it rarely ever was an issue till today.

Wendy notices it right away, "What's up? Couldn't find any prey last night?"

Prince sighs as he picks up his guitar, "No, we lost the witch. Michael's gotten a lot better, maybe he can catch this one tonight."

Lisa chimed in, "He better, you look almost dead."

He glares at Lisa, who realizes the error of her wording.

"Oh, oh right. I'm sorry…"

Prince shreds a few riffs on the guitar and says, "It's fine, lets just make music."

* * *

He wouldn't have been out witch hunting if he hadn't picked up witch auras so close to his house. Calling Michael seemed pointless now, so he scoured the backwoods of his house till he picked up the highest aura frequency, and opened a portal to the witches labyrinth.

The labyrinth looked like a tropical rain forest. The trees, grass, and everything in it all felt alive, but like a witches familiars, not like regular fauna.

He treads through the thick brush and grass, looking for the witch. This is where wearing heels has its downfall, big time. He breaks one of his heels on a tree root.

"Fuck!" He grabs the broken heel, brings the two broken pieces of the heel together, and repairs it with magic.

"JUST SHOW YOURSELF ALREADY, YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!"

Then out from the trees, a barrage of vines whip out, whirling all around him at lightning speed so fast that he doesn't fully process it all till he's completely wrapped in the vines from his upper neck to his toes.

"Grrrrrr…shit." His movement was completely cut off, making it impossible to summon his weapons. He hears a loud sharp hissing sound coming from the underbrush. An enormous snake creature with a long blade all the way down its back rises up from the grass, and shows off its enormous blade-like fangs. He can easily assume that it's the witch.

All Prince can do is stare at them as they rear closer to him. His eyes widen in sheer horror, he's about to die and all he can do is-

"OH NO YOU DON'T!" Like a flash of light, Michael whipped down from the sky, his cutlass shredding the vine-trap in two, and freeing Prince and dropping him like a rock onto the soft grass.

"Are you okay?" Michael asks as he leans down, grabbing Prince's hand to help him up.

"I'm okay, but…you cut through that vine like it was paper." he looks on at Michael in shock and awe, clearly Michael's practiced.

"Impressive, huh? I've been practicing my technique, strengthening my reflexes, that sort of thing." Michael smiles this cocky, confident smile, making Prince smile a little too, but the smile quickly fades when he looks behind the smiling idiot.

"Hsssssssss" The snake makes a loud hiss noise and prepares to charge at the two, revealing its fangs again. Prince notices this quickly.

"MICHAEL GET OUT OF THE WAY!" He shouts as he pushes Michael out of the way of the charging witch. The witch shreds trees and underbrush in its wake as it misses the two.

They run through the forest, till Prince remembers one of his weapons and stops.

"Duh, so stupid…" He puts his hands together and a purple glowing ball of energy forms around them, pulling his hands apart, a guitar forms from the purple energy beam, of course it's not just an ordinary guitar. He called it his Love Symbol guitar. He could manipulate its strings to go in an infinite number of directions, and it could also transform into a crossbow.

He manipulates its strings to grab onto the nearest tree branch, he gets on the guitar, and swings through the trees at a record pace.

Meanwhile, Michael is still running, not realizing Prince isn't running along side him anymore, till he swings down, Michael's grabbed by the neck of his cape and swung up onto the guitar with him.

"YOU COULD HAVE CHOKED ME!"

"Sorry, but we've got bigger problems!" The witch was in hot pursuit, shredding down every tree in its path. Prince tries to pick up the pace before they run out of trees to swing on. Realizing they're almost caught, and nearing the edge of a cliff, he gets another idea.

"MICHAEL, I'M SORRY!"

"WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Prince wills a few of the strings to wrap around Michael, and throw him up in the air a great distance. "AAAAHHHHH!" Michael shouts from the air.

Prince swings himself and the guitar in the air right as the witch cuts down the last tree. He does a flip in the air as he wills his guitar to transform into a crossbow. He illuminates an energy arrow from his marked finger nail, and prepares to fire.

"PRINCE, GO FOR THE UVULA!" Michael shouts from the distance as he falls from the sky.

He heard him but he can't really see that far into the creature's throat, but he gives it his best shot, he fires the arrow into the witch's mouth. It makes a gagging choking sound and swells up, it explodes all over the cleared out forest and a grief seed drops onto a stump.

Prince lands on his feet, like a cat, on the edge of the cliff. He looks up toward the sky to see Michael still falling. He manipulates his guitar strings to form a safety net to catch him. He makes a light 'oomph' sound as he lands on the make-shift net.

"Thanks, man…" Michael sighs as he lowers him down.

"Don't mention it." He says, lowering Michael to the ground.

"You're fucking insane, you know that?" Michael says with a slight laugh.

"Hey give me a break, I was doing everything on the spot and was running out of options. That witch was fucking terrifying."

The labyrinth disappeared before them, leaving only the grief seed behind. It's still dark out.

"You did great tonight." Prince says to a slightly shell-shocked Michael.

"You still did most of the work though, I was just useless baggage toward the end." Michael says sheepishly as he pulls his cape over his shoulders from the cold.

"That's not true! If you didn't make that killer entrance when you did, I'd be dead right now. You saved my life, you dork."

A small smile forms on Michael's lips, making Prince smile too. He pats him on his caped shoulder and offers to let him inside for some tea.

"Sure, t-that s-sounds great." he says with a slight shiver in his voice. Prince transforms back into his regular clothes, which aren't that different from his magical outfit, but Michael chooses to keep his on till he got inside because the cape was keeping him warm.

"I got a question though, how did you know i needed to shoot the uvula?"

Michael shrugged, "I dunno, lucky guess, i guess."


	3. Chapter 3

Janet opened a window to Michael's room to let him back in. She's been covering for him whenever he goes witch hunting. She used to go with him but eventually she decided to stay behind. The contract was proposed to her but she declined it. She still has the ability to see witches.

"Joseph and mom are starting to get suspicious, you know that, right?"

"Yeah but not like this, they probably think I'm out with some girl or something."

"I told them you've been out clubbing. They weren't happy about it but any lie is better than the truth, i guess."

"Couldn't you have come up with something more convincing? Like I was in the dance studio and didn't want to be bothered? Or i was in the recording booth?"

"Sorry, I just panicked, they were pretty pissed off. Can't you go one week without hunting witches?"

Michael shrugged, he figured he might be able to, though he didn't want to risk it.

"Well can't you?"

"I don't know, I'm afraid people will get hurt if I'm not on guard, you know?"

"But why you?"

"Because I took on this responsibility, remember?"

"But why did you do it? You'll never defeat all those things by yourself!"

"This is my opportunity to stop lots of bad things before they can happen! I've been doing it for so long, why don't you have faith in me?"

Janet hesitated for a moment, contemplating what to say next. She quietly begins to sob

"I do have faith in you, Michael, but you worry me sometimes…"

He gives her a concerned look and frowns.

"Why though?"

She inhales through her mouth and gives a deep sigh. Her arms folded.

"It's just that…if it weren't for Prince always saving your ass, you'd probably be dead right now…"

Michael looks dumbstruck. he puts his hands on her shoulders, to reassure her.

"Janet, I've been doing this a lot longer than he has! We're partners in this, and I'll admit it was a lot harder before he came along but with the two of us it's gotten much easier to take out witches. Plus I've taken out plenty of witches without his help too, you know."

Janet blows a piece of fly-away hair from her face and says, with a little smile.

"I guess you're right…but my point still stands, there's always gonna be despair in the world no matter what. Those witches are always going to exist, so there's no point in putting yourself in danger all the time and being reckless. Plus how can you be so sure the people you protect wouldn't be the same ones who'd stab you in the back if given the chance?"

"What do you mean, Prince would never do that. And I'm not reckless, I've been getting a lot better."

"No, I mean regular civilians, the people you call fans and others."

"Well, regardless of what they do or how I feel about it, it's my responsibility to protect them, alright?"

Janet just gives a disgruntled sigh and closes the window and leaves Michael's room. Michael just collapses on his bed and replenishes his soul gem, trying not to give much thought to Janet's words.

—

"Here you go." Says Michael as he tosses Kyubey his used-up grief seed from the night before. He decided he just needed some fresh air tonight, no witch hunting, no nothing. He's on the outskirts of the city in some desert-like grassy area.

"Omnomnomnom, thanks Michael."

"No problem…."

He listens to the rush of traffic and congested city life from the desert mountains above. The conversation with Janet from the night before was still bothering him.

"Hey Kyubey?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think I'm good at this, this mahou shonen thing?"

"What do you mean? compared to Prince?"

"How did you know i meant that?"

"Well, to answer your question, yes, Prince is a lot more talented."

"What?! But that's not fair! I've been doing this so much longer than he has!"

"It can't be helped, he's a natural at it, and he's had more practice early on in his mahou shonen career, plus, he keeps plenty of grief seeds in reserve so he doesn't have to exhaust himself as much."

Michael looks confused.

"Wait, i thought you just said he practices more than me, what's this about him not fighting as much as me?"

"He kills several witches at a time and saves the grief seeds, with that being said, he can use as much magic as he wants because he's got more grief seeds in reserve. That's how he's so powerful. You on the other hand use each grief seed you get one at a time, you won't become as powerful unless you have more grief seeds in reserve."

Michael looks at kyubey, confused and a little distressed.

"Prince wouldn't fight just for himself, or just for grief seeds…"

"That's exactly what he does. Not that there's anything wrong with it. It's a hard job, and it's only natural to want to be paid for your work. You two as music artists should know that better than anyone."

kyubey's snide remark actually made Michael laugh a little, but he brought himself back down to earth.

"But really, you're kidding about him though, right?"

"I'm not."

Michael looks at kyubey upset, and sighs.

"I'll be honest with you. Initially, I wasn't sure about contracting males, but when I saw how much incredible potential you had, I just knew I had to make a contract with you, and prince too especially."

"So, i guess this isn't really as female-exclusive as maybe even you thought?"

"Oh no, we've always been able to make contracts with males, as long as their level of potential was as high as a female, and it usually isn't, so you two are a pretty rare case."

Michael looks up at the moon and smirks to himself.

"Heh, so I guess that makes us pretty special, huh?"

"I suppose it does."


	4. Chapter 4

Michael decided to patrol the city alone again tonight, he was beginning to realize that fighting alone gave him a greater focus. However, taking his celebrity status into account, he made sure to only go out really late at night so no one could see him. He scours the very run down, messed up parts of the city, and tries disguising himself in jeans, a hoodie, and a beanie, and with any luck the darkness would hide his face.

'I hope I actually find a witch or two tonight, last few nights haven't been very good…'

A few minutes later he comes across a weak, but consistent witch aura, and follows it till it gets stronger and stronger, to the alleyway behind a bar.

'I can fight this witch on my own tonight, I don't need Prince's help...'

Michael opens a portal to the witch's barrier and leaps through. The barrier has a lot of bright pastel colors like pinks, greens, purples, and blues, and is set up like an enormous maze.

'Where's its familiars? I guess it doesn't have any, maybe to confuse intruders…'

he goes further and further down the maze, keeping his guard up, he goes down the path, leading to many roadblocks. He also hears sadistic cackling laughter, possibly from a familiar, or the witch.

"Crap, where the hell is this thing?!"

He sees a group of cackling familiars in the shape of wilting roses, they looked pitiful.

Mike got in a ready stance, wherever a lot of familiars were that meant a witch was close by. He hid within his cape and in seconds emerged with his summoned mic-swords. He threw a couple at the familiars to scare them off.

He could hear the witch coming closer. It approached, looking like a half-wilted bell-flower sort of thing. It had large spores and its petal-head looked half dead at the root, but a bright lavender at the top and it had long tentacle-like roots.

Its tentacle roots headed toward him, and mike leaped up into the air, with the roots in hot pursuit, and flashing their thorns. He had nowhere to go, so he summoned a psychic energy wall to leap off of. He leaps down toward the approaching threat, and slices through the tentacle-roots.

But another catches him off guard and wraps around his whole body up to his neck, slowly getting tighter, and to make things worse, the thorns were piercing Michael from the inside, making it really difficult to summon his swords. Michael winced at the pain, it was agonizing. He bit his lip to try to suppress the urge to cry out in pain, but tried to keep calm.

'I think i might know another way out of this, I hope this works...' He began to relax his muscles, which was hard because he was being squeezed so tight, but the more relaxed he was, and the less he struggled, the easier it would be to move so he could summon a sword.

"YES!" The grip of the witch loosened enough for him to pull a sword out of his one glove, which he shredded through the vine, breaking free and attacking the witch head-on.

He stabbed at its head repeatedly, its vines flailing around from the pain. Mike's face got splattered with its green blood, he chopped at the enormous spores. The labyrinth begins to shake, the walls beginning to crack and shatter, the pastel ceiling falling from above, making eruption noises.

Michael chuckled "This is amazing! I'm beating the witch on my own for once!"  
The labyrinth starts to completely fall and shatter around him, he gets up and is covered in green blood. He's exhausted, panting and breathless from the intense bludgeoning. Any cuts from the thorns from before start to heal before his eyes. His hair is covered in the witches blood and remains.

He wiped his hair from his eyes and saw that the labyrinth was falling around him, and gradually starts to dissapate. He finds himself back in the alleyway. Luckily it's still dark out, so he quickly transforms back into his street clothes and tries to find the grief seed.

"Found it..." He whispers to himself. He hesitates, he remembers what kyubey said about saving grief seeds.

'That's right, if I keep using every grief seed i get one at a time, I'll never be as strong as Prince. That was a pretty weak witch anyway, I just got lucky out there...' He looks at his soul gem.

'It's a little cloudy, but a little cloudiness won't kill me.'


	5. Chapter 5

"Hmmm...ah, that's no good..." Prince was casually strumming some chords for something he could work into a song at some point, but nothing sounded right.

He continues to play, with lisa accompanying him on the keyboard, before he just stops and she continues with her own melody.

"Not feeling it today?" She asks. He sighs,

"Not really, I guess I'm just distracted."

"By what?"

He's not sure how to respond, he acted much differently around his band members than Michael, he didn't want them to know he was worried about him, he was afraid of showing his vulnerability in front of his band, because he's worried they'd stop taking him seriously, but lisa was the only one there. He was worried she'd go blabbing about it to the band.

"Is this about your 'other' job?"

He rolls his eyes, looking annoyed but feeling like a deer caught in heaqdlights, he admits,

"Yeah, kinda...It's complicated.

"You worried about your boyfriend?"

Prince's eyes shot up at the remark, he scowled at her, clearly angry at the implication.

"Hey fuck off! We're just teammates!"

She had a satisfied smirk on her face. She strolled back to the keyboard and played a little cheerful tune and giggled. He turned away and rolled his eyes and scoffed.

Lisa stopped, looking down at the keyboard, this time with a genuine smile on her face, and said,

"It's ok if you're worried about him, you know."

Prince looks over to her, he could practically feel the vulnerability and concern in his expression and he cursed himself for it.

"It's ok, sorry about that, it's just you two spend so much time together and it's easy to joke around, you know?"

"Well don't. It's not funny." He sounded serious, but it didn't sway her.

"Well, someone's a little defensive."

He scoffed at her, and she was about to make her leave when she turns to him and says,

"But seriously, I think it's sweet that you're worried about him, don't worry, I won't tell anyone." she gave him a reassuring smile and wink and went off on her way.

He rolled his eyes, but smiled to himself, and shouted,

"THANKS!" and continued practicing.

* * *

A couple hours later, he's got a new song written, and is planning on how he's gonna develop it.

He hears a familiar voice behind him, "So, you're concerned for Michael?" it's Kyubey. Prince sighs.

"Oh, it's you. The hell do you want?" he continues playing, a little more aggressively than before.

"I just wanted you to know Michael's been getting stronger."

Prince glares at the creature and it just gives him that blank stare.

"Like I need your memo."

Kyubey sighs, "With that said, he's still not as strong as you, and at the rate he's been fighting lately, I don't think he'll ever be."

Prince continues to glare at him

"What do you know." He turns away goes back to trying to play, but he can still feel kyubey's presence.

"Why are you still here?"

"You're worried about Michael finding out about the truth about the soul gems, aren't you?"

Prince's stomach drops. He quickly turns back to kyubey

"How do you know that?!"

"I can read your mind, remember?"

He cursed himself.

"Don't worry, Michael won't find out about the soul gems unless he asks, but do you really think you can keep it a secret from him forever?"

"I'm willing to go for as long as it takes. I didn't realize he didn't know till recently, all i have to do is keep up the feeling of normalicy."

Prince hesitates for a moment, then looks down at his soul gem, it was shining purple, with his symbol on top.

"Besides...I don't want him to find out the way I did..."

"But you do acknowledge that he will find out eventually?"

Prince continues to glare intensely at the creature. He slowly reaches for his love symbol guitar, and uses his powers to transform it into his crossbow and summons an energy arrow from his index finger. Slowly he begins to take aim.

"What are you doing?"

Prince takes his aim, even though he's pretty close.

"Heh, target practice, what do you think?"

He fires his arrow but kyubey dodges it quickly, he fires several more shots with kyubey running back and fourth to avoid getting hit. Prince doesn't move from the couch.

"HA! GOTCHA!" Prince finally got kyubey point-blank, he exploded in a mess of red mush, but another fell from nowhere in its place to clean up the mess. He knew there was no point in trying to kill the creature other than for target practice, venting, and because it was funny.

"You know there's no point in doing that."

Prince walks over and looks down at the regenerated cat-creature, smirking.

"Yeah, target practice, duh." He fires point-blank at the creature again, red flesh splattering everywhere.

"Bullseye."


	6. Chapter 6

Michael looked up at the ceiling, lying on his bed. He wasn't planning on witch hunting tonight, he actually got stuff related to his music for a change. He looked at his soul gem, it was looking a little cloudy, but it wasn't too bad.

'I'll clean it after I get one more grief seed.' he says to himself.

'I feel like I've gotten a little stronger, but is it really enough?' He looks at his soul gem.

'Am I a hypocrite for judging Prince because he fights to collect more grief seeds now that I'm doing the same thing?'

He ponders these thoughts, a little distressed. He sits up, trying to find a way to justify himself, rubbing his temples, then he has an epiphany.

'No, because I'm only doing it so I can get stronger and fight more witches, therefore protecting more people.'

He grins and stands up, feeling more comfortable knowing he's still following his principles.

'Man, not only am I an internationally beloved star with several number 1 hits, I also save the world pretty much!'

Mike was feeling unusually confident tonight.

"You know what? I think I will go witch hunting tonight!"

* * *

He makes his way out, past security and down the block to the dingier parts of the city. He made sure to put his hoodie, jeans, and sneakers on before he left. It was a simple, but effective disguise.

He wanders deeper into the city, the bright neon signs illuminating the way, but he wasn't sensing any witches.

'Crap, nothing out tonight...' That's when he decides to go to the industrial part of the city, where there'd be more witch activity.

He walks a half mile down the road into the industrial side of the city.

'Ah, now I can sense the witches...' He follows the aura to the back of an abandoned warehouse.

"Well, time to get to work!" He quickly transforms and opens a portal to the witch's labyrinth and leaps through.

This one is set up like a regular train station, nothing really special about it. It's very dark, and there doesn't seem to be any familiars either.

"Hmmm...well, this should be quick."

Then he hears a train pull up to the terminal. The destination is written in runic script, which michael never really got the hang of.

The train comes to a slow stop.

'This is really weird...' He slowly approaches the train car, and opens the door.

A huge rush of grape vines race past, startling mike.

"Woah, geez." He looks into the train. A blue sky with a few clouds, and racing grape vines everywhere roll across the rolling hills and valleys.

Mike, not wanting to get distracted by the scenery, leaps into the labyrinth, and lands on one of the vine posts, on his feet like a graceful cat right as it comes to a screeching halt.

"Woah..." and then the vines race forward again and gradually gain speed. Mike tries to keep his balance but it's getting difficult.

'Oh, duh, I could just run on these things.' He runs across the vines, leaping from post to post, the vineyard seemed never-ending. He can feel the vineyard gaining speed, and notices a sharp, steep drop in the valley. He quickly leans down on a post, leaning on with one foot on top of the vines and his hands and other foot on the post.

"AAAH-oh?"

The vines lept over the valley in a magnificent bound, high enough for mike to catch a glimpse of the whole valley, it was covered in vineyard vines, it looked never-ending.

"URGH-UH!" It crash landed back onto the plain, making Michael tumble-rolls backwards and fall over crashing on the ground, almost out cold. The vines barely miss hitting him.

The vines rush past him, he's barely conscious. He tries to get back up but staggers on his feet. He manages to summon a sword.

The vines begin to circle around him.

"TAKE THIIIIIS!" He slices through several of the vines, making a clear exit by leaping over the shredded vines and leaps onto one of the vine posts, continuing to leap from vine to vine.

"Mike!" Calls Prince, he's hopping from vine to vine while the vines breach over the valley. He looked so graceful and majestic. He made it look so simple.

"Wha-OW!" He tripped on a post but grabs onto the vines so he doesn't fall down again.

'You can do this, Mike. You don't need him to catch you...'

He runs and jumps onto another vine and notices at the end of the valley where the witch is. It has a yellow parasol head and parasol-like dress with grape vine arms and legs. It's a pretty big witch.

Mike leaps off the vine and charges at the witch, summoning another sword to slice off its arms, its arms grow and charge at Michael at a rapid rate, knocking the swords out of his hands before he can steady himself.

"AAUUGHH.." The blunt force from that hit hurt like hell, giving him nasty cuts and bruises, he holds his hands together to try to supress the pain. Despite this, Michael manages to summon two more swords and charges at the witch once more. The witch summons its grape vines to circle around them and grow to towering heights over them, tall as skyscrapers, still circling.

Vines from among the grape vines charge at Michael, whipping around both his arms so he can't summon any swords, they lift him up several feet in the air, about 50 feet or so. He tries to struggle but it's useless.

"HEADS UP!" Prince sashays a double-energy arrow from his crossbow, releasing Mike, but causing him to fall.

He quickly summons his cloud guitar and uses its strings to wrap around Michael, as well as tie a protective cocoon canopy in mid air.

"What's this?! No! I don't wanna be stuck like this! I wanna fight this witch!" Mike tries to shout but he can tell Prince can't hear him.

Prince still uses his guitar's strings as a bungee to land safely, but lets go of the guitar once his feet hit the ground, making it bounce back up in the air

He summons his love symbol crossbow again, summons a triple-headed energy arrow and takes aim at its head. He fires at it, creating a barrage of smoke, the witch isn't dead but it's been pretty weakened.

He summons another cloud guitar and plays a few chords, charging up an energy beam. He fires the beam point-blank, killing the witch instantly.

"BULLSEYE!" He shouts victoriously.

He summons his other cloud guitar back down, still not letting go of Michael, but gently lowering him down to the ground and releasing him.

"Hehe, sorry for leaving you hanging there."

Mike isn't sure how to respond, he's upset, but Prince looks so happy he's ok.

"It's alright, I'm just glad I'm ok. Thanks for saving my ass again." He felt his stomach drop in embarrassment.

Prince goes to pick up the grief seed and places it against Michael's soul gem. He can feel the dirty energy leaving his gem, and suddenly he feels his powers have recharged and his soul gem was clear.

Prince uses the grief seed on his gem next, his wasn't as cloudy to begin with.

The labyrinth starts to vanish around them and they quickly transform back into their civilian clothes.

"Mind if I walk you home?" He extends his hand thoughtfully to Michael, who's slightly confused by the gesture, but seeing Prince's soft, genuine smile makes him blush, though he's not sure why.

"Uh, sure." He agrees and they head on out of the industrial part of town.

Mike notices Prince is wearing a similar disguise, a black zip-up hoodie, jeans with duct tape wrapped around the middle of one the right leg, even sneakers and he's got his hood pulled over his head, just like him.

They walk past a set of rusty abandoned train tracks as the full moon illuminates the pitch black night.

"Hey Michael..." He looks over to Prince, whose profile is partially covered by the hood.

"Yeah?"

"I saw you take down those grape-vine familiars earlier, and I was really impressed..."

This made Michael happy, and he smiled to himself, he wasn't really sure why.

"But I also saw you get knocked down from those grape vines and get your swords knocked out of your hands..."

Mike felt his stomach drop like there was a boulder inside of it.

"You've gotten a lot better, but you still have a long way to go if you want to be as strong as me."

Mike could feel a blush craw to his cheeks, he was so embarrassed.

'I don't get it, why do I care so much about what he thinks?! His opinions aren't everything and why does he even think I care anyway?! Does he really believe he's the strongest Mahou Shonen around?'

"I'm sorry I'm raggin' on you but It's just me being a concerned teammate, and friend."

'And why didn't he help me if he saw I was in trouble then anyway?! Why'd he wait till I found the witch to decide when I needed help?! Did he just want the grief seed?!'

"Mike?"

"What? Oh, I'm sorry, what'd you say?"

Prince sighs and reiterates,

"I basically said I'm just being a caring friend, sometimes I worry about you out there, alright?"

Mike bites his lip, and says

"You sound like a mother hen."

Prince laughs, "Hey, it's late and I'm tired."

they make their way back to Mike's house, and sneak past security.

"Well, I'll see you later." And Prince makes his way out back the way they came in.

* * *

Mike felt an enormous crushing blow from tonight's witch battle, he thought he had it all under control and taken care of, then Prince swoops in like some dainty knight in shining armor trying to act like the hero and talking down to him when he screwed up, like he asked for his opinion anyway!

And plus, Mike wanted that grief seed all for himself.

'Who does he think he is acting all superior like that?! I didn't even ask for his help! I was totally capable of taking that witch by myself...' Then he remembers the fact his arms were bound so he couldn't summon swords.

'Well, I would have gotten my ass out of there somehow!'

He opens a back door to discreetly let himself in.

"Michael, where the fuck have you been?" It's Joseph. Michael flinches at the sound of his voice.

"I was, uh, in the recording booth working out some new material for-"

"Bullshit, you better not be lying to me or else I'll-"

He screams at him, "JOSEPH I'M AN ADULT, YOU CAN'T JUST KEEP TREATING ME LIKE I'M STILL A KID!" His eyes felt hot with tears begginning to form and overflow.

"Oh you didn't just-AAUUUGHH!" Joseph had lifted his hand up as if to slap Michael, but something stopped him, it brought Joseph to his knees and made him hold onto his head like it were gonna fall off if he didn't. Mike was still standing there watching the scene, and Joseph slowly got back on his feet.

"Oh, evening Michael, where've you been?" suddenly he sounded calmer than before, and he didn't seem to remember what had happened.

"Just went to the studio, wrote some more songs, you know." Joseph gave an agreeable nod and left the room, Mike ran upstairs and quickly but quietly shut the door behind him and quietly began to sob.

If the battle had't taken a blow to his self confidence, then his father certainly did.


	7. Chapter 7

_It was just another day in the studio. Michael and his brothers were practicing their dance steps. Michael was trying to be very careful not to miss one step, or else he'd get the belt, courtesy of Joseph. Joseph sat in a chair across from the boys, belt in hand._

_Michael thought to himself, 'You gotta focus...' he did a spin and some more steps_

_'Don't worry about Joseph, worry about your steps.'_

_He does another spin, he trips on his own foot and falls on his face. He lands hard. His brothers stop dancing._

"_Ugh, ow..." He slowly starts to get up. Joseph gets up from his chair, tightens the grip on the belt, and starts approaching him. Mike quickly notices from the corner of his eye. He runs around the studio, trying to keep Joseph from trying to grab him and charges out of the studio, relieved that Joseph forgot to lock the door. He runs across the estate, through the garden, jumping over a bed of roses, all while still wearing his platform shoes._

_He opens the back door, rushing inside and nearly slipping in the foyer. He runs upstairs, down the hall, and into his room. His heart thumps hard in his chest. He leans against the door, since there weren't any locks, to keep Joseph from getting in. His legs start to shake and they give out. He sinks to the floor._

_Michael struggles to catch his breath, "I really pissed him off this time…" he sighs. He feels another presence in the room, he scans the room and spots a weird white cat-like creature sitting on his bed. It had long appendages hanging from its ears with gold rings around them, and little red dots. It has dark violet eyes that seemed to look right through him._

"_AAH!" Michael jolts back up from the floor, still leaning on the door with all his weight. He clutches his chest, feeling his heart race._

"_Hello, Michael. My name is Kyubey."_

_He blinks hard a couple times, he rubs his eyes, trying to make sure he hasn't gone completely crazy from fear._

"_W-What are you?! What are you doing in my room?!" His eyes widen as the creature slowly approaches him._

"_I'm a messenger of magic. I've come because I have a favor to ask of you."_

_There's a pregnant pause, Michael's still trying to process all of this._

"_What…what kind of favor?"_

"_I want you to make a contract with me and become a Mahou Shonen."_

_He gives a blank, confused look to the creature._

"_What's that? What's a contract?"_

"_I will grant you one wish, anything you desire, and in exchange you'll be granted special powers, but it will be your duty to fight witches."_

"_What are witches?"_

"_They're the manifestations of despair, they're the reason for murders and suicides all over the world."_

_Michael gives a thoughtful look, still leaning against the door._

"_So, they're like Satan's minions, right?"_

"_You could say that, yeah."_

"_WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, BOY?!" Joseph calls out to Michael as he makes his way up the stairs. He can hear Joseph's loud steps all the way from his room. Michael's heart rate starts increasing again._

"_Oh no oh no…so, you said you can grant any wish, right?"_

"_Yes, as long as the potential candidate has enough karmic energy, and you have more than enough potential, so tell me, what is it you wish for?"_

_He can hear Joseph getting closer up the stairs and down the hallway._

"_I wish Joseph would stop beating me!"_

_Michael immediately feels a burning sensation in his chest. He falls on his knees, clutching his chest like his heart is gonna jump out, a white glow emits from his chest._

"_Ugh…" He grits his teeth, a little bright ivory glowing egg pops up from his chest, rising in mid-air. Michael feels faint._

"_COME OUT HERE, BOY!"_

_Michael snaps out of it and grabs the soul gem and shoves it in his pocket. He isn't totally sure what just happened, but his thoughts are racing too fast to think too hard about it, it didn't really hurt so it couldn't be that bad._

_Joseph swung the door open, throwing Mike to the floor. He looks over at Joseph, giving him an intense look of terror and fear._

"_Alright, boy, now I'm gonna-AAHHH!" Joseph clutches his head and falls to his knees. He screams at the sharp pain in his head, it also has a burning feeling._

"_AAAAAHHHH, OH GOD…" He shakes ferociously and this scares the crap out of Michael._

"_WHAT-WHAT'S HAPPENING?! I DON'T WANT THIS! I DON'T WANT TO KILL HIM!"_

"_Michael, you have the power to make it stop, just will for it and it will happen!"_

"_OH GOD, MAKE IT STOP, PLEASE!"_

"_I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT—OK FINE!" He starts to think of Joseph's pain disappearing, he closes his eyes and thinks really hard of cool ice and steam rising. He opens his eyes to see that Joseph's shaking has calmed down and then come to a complete halt, his eyes are blood-shot from tearing up from the pain. He wraps his arms around his chest and he's still on his knees._

"_What...happened? What did I come in here for? And what am I doing on the floor?!"_

_Mike looks down at Joseph, wide-eyed, and horrified of the implications of the situation. Despite this, he says,_

"_You came in to say I did a good job at rehearsal and you tripped and fell." He gives him one of his winning smiles._

"_Huh…oh yeah, good job tonight, boy." He gets up slowly before giving Michael a slight wave before leaving, closing the door on his way out._

_Michael turns to Kyubey, furious._

"_OK, what the hell just happened?! Is Joseph gonna be alright? Did I just give him brain damage?!"_

"_Your wish was a charm wish, it won't actually hurt him, all the pain he felt was a physical reflection of the fear you felt."_

_Michael's expression softened._

"_Once you learn to control that fear, you can use your power more effectively how you want. The power erases his memory of the moment he wants to hit you."_

_Michael smiled, "Well, that's good. I don't want to hurt him like that again, no way would I want him to feel what I felt. That's not something I'd wish on anyone."_

_He pulls his Soul Gem out from his pocket._

"_So, what is this thing?"_

"_It's called a Soul Gem. It's the source of your powers, and it proves that you're a Mahou Shonen."_

"_Whoa, really?" He looks at it, it glows bright with an ivory color, and it's got a little crescent moon symbol on top._

"_So, I guess this makes me like a super hero now or something, right?"_

"_Pretty much, yeah."_

_Michael stretches his arms and falls on his bed._

"_That's pretty cool, and in a way, it helps me feel more at ease, knowing I can look out for my siblings a lot more easily, protect them from stuff I didn't know was out there till today. It's all happening so fast…there's one more thing I'm wondering though, why couldn't Joseph see you?"_

"_Only potential magical candidates and Magical girls and boys can see me."_

"_Ah." Michael closes his eyes and starts to relax, feeling more at ease with the situation, feeling in control._

"_I'll be honest, I don't usually make contracts with males. I initially came here to make a contract with Latoya and Janet, but when I saw you, I knew you had more potential than either of them combined, and I just had to make a contract with you."_

_Mike smirks at the revelation, and looks over at Kyubey. "So, I guess that makes me pretty special, huh?"_

"_Absolutely."_

_He rolls back over on his back, putting his hands behind his head, and closes his eyes._

_He begins to feel uneasy, he rolls over on his side._

"_Why do I feel so…off? Like something doesn't feel right."_

"_Check your Soul Gem."_

_Mike looks at his Soul Gem, its glow vibrating._

"_Your Soul Gem is picking up witch activity close by."_

"_What? But I don't see anything."_

"_It's near, it might come to attack the estate."_

"_WHAT?! HERE?! OH NO!"_

"_AAAAHHHH!" A sharp scream echoes from across the hallway, it sounds like Latoya and Janet._

_A witch's labyrinth materializes before them. The atmosphere changes, an enormous industrial warehouse with numerous floating gears, shrapnel, and bullet shells materializes before their eyes._

"_Oh no…no no no…"_

_They run down a dark hall._

"_Michael, this is the labyrinth of the witch, you've got to transform right now!"_

"_What?! Transform?! Into what?!"_

"_Use your Soul Gem to activate your powers!"_

"_But how?!"_

"_Use your will! Just do it!"_

"_B-But…OK fine!"_

_He tries to focus really hard, but his thoughts are racing too fast for him to concentrate, meanwhile he hears another scream pierce the labyrinth._

'_Ugh, you can do this, Mike…'_

"_Wha-?!"_

_A sword shoots out from his gem, only the blade though, no handle._

"_Michael, that won't be enough to fight the witch."_

_He snaps at Kyubey, "Yeah, you don't think I know that?! I'm trying the best I can!"_

_They continue on the path to the center of the labyrinth. Once they arrive, Michael spots Janet and Latoya holding each other in the far corner of the Labyrinth, the witch, which looked like an old 50's Cadillac with its grille wide open, like a mouth, and had sharp teeth. It had arms which looked like stretched out rubber with tires at the end that had teeth where the rims should be and it had headlights for eyes. The witch was enormous._

"_Michael?! Is that you?!" calls Janet._

"_Run! It's too dangerous!" shouts Latoya._

"_What?! And leave you two behind?! No way!"_

_Michael looks at the witch and quickly turns his head to look at his sisters still cowering in the corner. He puts his hands to the side of his head._

'_Focus, Michael, you've gotta focus…'_

_The witch starts to make its way towards them._

"_COME ON, WHY ISN'T IT WORKING?!"_

_The witch jumps toward the girls, flashing its enormous, sharp teeth._

"_NO!" Mike runs in between the witch and the girls, suddenly a white light radiates from his body and knocks the witch down across the labyrinth, the girls run away from the blast._

_Michael feels a warmth emit from his very being; a black tuxedo, a white cape with a mandarin collar, and scabbards shaped like mic stands materialize all around his body. His thoughts feel more focused now, and he was scared, both for his sisters and himself._

_The light vanishes and Mike is holding a sword with a microphone at the handle. Everything starts to come back into perspective now, he's trying to save his sisters from a witch, and the blast from his transformation did some considerable damage to it, it knocked out most of its teeth and burned its mouth and face._

_Michael runs toward it, clutching the sword tight._

"_AAAAHHH!" He slashes the sword into the witch's face, and starts stabbing at its face repeatedly._

"_Umph-!"_

_The witch whirls one of its arms at Michael, knocking him into the wall. It holds its toothy-tire hand against him, making him cry out,_

"_Ugh…AAAHH!" he grits his teeth, trying to suppress the pain. It digs its teeth deeper into him. The hand clutching the sword is also trapped, its teeth burrowing into his arm, making him drop the sword. Both his arms are trapped so he can't summon another sword._

"_Err-ugh…I'm so sorry…I couldn't save you…"_

_He winces from the pain. He looks and he sees his sisters in the corner of his eye, and they're on the verge of tears_

"_I guess…that makes me a pretty bad brother, huh?"_

_The witch goes in for the final kill._

"_OH NO YOU DON'T!" A voice echoes from a portal into the labyrinth. A magical girl slashes down from above, slicing into the arm holding Mike against the wall, setting him free. He falls to the ground and holds his chest, which has gashes from the witch's bite._

_The Magical girl does some spinning-slashes at the witch with an enormous scythe, before going for one final stab, the witch explodes into gears and sparkly dust, and drops something peculiar. The girl picks it up, it's black and pointy at the top and bottom, but round in the middle._

_Mike looks over to her, and suddenly recognizes her._

"_Rebbie?!" his eyes widen with surprise, there's another magical in the family?_

"_Mike! I see you've made a contract too. You did great out there, not bad for your first hunt!" She gives a cheery grin and hands him his reward._

"_It's called a Grief Seed. You use it to cleanse your Soul Gem. You usually find them after a witch battle."_

_She examines him, and spots his Soul Gem at the center of his neck, at the nape of his cape._

"_See how cloudy your Soul Gem's gotten during the fight? That means some of your magic's been depleted. Watch this."_

_She holds the Grief Seed up to his gem and all the cloudiness gets sucked into it. Mike looks down at his neck._

"_Whoa, it cleared right up."_

_She then uses the Grief Seed on her own Soul Gem, which is located on her arm._

"_Do you mind?" Kyubey appears behind Rebbie and points at the grief seed with its tail._

"_It's all yours." She drops it and he eats it through a small opening in his back, kind of like a mouth._

"_So, when did you make the contract?" She's got one hand on her hip and a charming smile on her face, she seems completely unfazed by what just happened._

"_I, uh…about an hour ago."_

"_Wow! So soon! Well, I hope we can do this again sometime, if you ever need someone to help you practice fighting with, I'll be there."_

"_REBBIE! MICHAEL!" The girls ran to her and Mike and hugged them tight._

"_What was that thing?!" cried Janet._

"_It's called a witch. They've never attacked this close to the estate before."_

_The labyrinth evaporates around them and they're back in Michael's room. They transform back into their regular clothes. Mike finds it a lot easier to turn back to normal then to transform into his Mahou Shonen outfit._

_Rebbie says, "Want me to make you guys some tea? You had a real scare there." The girls and Michael all nod and she rushes out to boil a pot of water._

_Mike looks down at Kyubey, "She seems perfectly ok with all this. Isn't that weird?"_

"_She's been a magical girl for two years now. She's used to this sort of thing."_

_A few minutes later she comes out with three cups of herbal tea._

_Michael takes his, "Aren't you gonna have some?"_

"_Mine's in the kitchen, I'm just gonna go to bed now. I really look forward to teaming up with you again sometime, Michael."_

_With that she leaves, closing the door behind her._

"_Are you really gonna have to fight those things all the time?!" asks Janet_

"_Yeah, I'm afraid so. Don't worry, I won't let those things hurt you."_

_They hug Michael tight and Michael returns their hugs._

* * *

"I don't know what I'm telling you all this for, I mean you were there." Michael says. He's lying on his bed, and Kyubey's on the side of his bed near the edge.

"That's right, so why are you telling me all this now?"

Mike looks up at the ceiling. "I guess…It's to remind myself why I fight. They say if you repeat things out loud you can remember them more easily."

"If it's any consolation, you've improved quite significantly since your very first witch hunt."

"It's not just that, it's just…I feel like my wish made more sense when I was a teenager, but now that I'm an adult, it's losing its relevance."

"But what about what happened earlier?"

"That could have just been caused by my own fear."

"Considering how he treats you, how can you be so sure he wouldn't have hit you?"

Michael sighs, "Yeah, maybe you're right. Do you want me to keep talking?"

"Take as much time as you need."


	8. Chapter 8

_A month passes since Michael made the contract with Kyubey. He's been practicing witch hunting with Rebbie, and she's been giving him pointers on how to use his magic more efficiently, not only when fighting, but in everyday life as well._

_"Rebbie! Watch this!" Michael shows her five little rubber balls. He throws them up in the air, and just as they're about to fall, he throws his open right palm in the air, the balls freeze._

_He whirls his finger around, making the little balls dance all over the living room. He's got his eyes focused on the balls till he looks over at Rebbie, she's looking at the mid-air spectacle, holding a glass of water in her hand, and he gets an idea._

_'This is gonna be fun…'_

_Using his other hand, he points at the glass, and the water in the glass begins to levitate, and when Rebbie notices this from the corner of her eye, she gasps in surprise._

_Mike points his finger from the water upward, making the water float completely out of the glass. He conducts the balls and the water, he points at them at the same time to go up and down and all around the room. Focusing on the water, he points at it with both fingers. He slowly moves his fingers apart and causes it to separate into little drops, and then continues to make them dance, flailing his arms like a conductor at the podium._

_The smile on Rebbie's face starts to disappear and she gives Michael a concerned look, and once he catches sight of this, he stops the spectacle, making the balls and water fall from the air, getting the floor wet and causing little balls to bounce around everywhere._

_"I know you're having fun, but you really should save your magic for when you need it, primarily while witch hunting. You wouldn't wanna deplete your soul gem before you have any grief seeds, would you?"_

_Mike looks down at the floor, feeling a little embarrassed. "It's alright, but lets just check your soul gem to see how cloudy its gotten."_

_Mike pulls out his soul gem from his pocket._

_"Hmm, it's a little cloudy, but it's not anything that can't wait till later to fix. I'm all out of grief seeds right now. Do you have any?"_

_Michael goes to his room to check. He rushes up the stairs and down the hallway. He opens his dresser drawer and digs through his junk._

_"Crap, no grief seeds…" He whispers to himself._

_He goes back down the hallway. Just as he reaches the stairway, he hears Joseph in the other room shout,_

_"GOD DAMMIT, BOY!" he hears a hard slap noise and a heavy fall to the floor._

_"Uuugh…" he hears a heavy groan. Michael sees the doorway is cracked open and listens in. He peeks inside and sees that it's Marlon. He's got a black eye, he staggers up, almost toppling over himself._

_'Oh no…" Mike starts to feel a sharp pang of fear for Marlon's sake, and then he remembers,_

_"Oh yeah, my power, I can use my fear to protect him…" He focuses intently on Joseph, focusing and harnessing all his fear to work for him in this very moment._

_"This'll teach you to mess with me, boy!" He kicks Marlon in the stomach, sending him collapsing to the floor and crying out in agonizing pain._

_'What?! No, this isn't right! Joseph should be in pain right now! Why isn't it working?!'_

_Joseph continues kicking Marlon while he's still reeling on the floor. Mike's eyes widen, horrified at the sight._

_'What's going on?! I'm terrified! Joseph should be reeling on the floor in pain right now! Not Marlon!' He wants to intervene, break it up somehow, but he was afraid of what they would say about his powers. His family would treat him like a freak of nature. The more he thought of it, the more he worried,_

_'What if they call me an affront to God because of my powers?' the thought terrified him._

_Just as the thought crossed his mind, Joseph stormed out of the room, past Michael, leaving Marlon looking like a beaten rag-doll still lying on the floor. Michael rushes to his aid._

_'Michael, I suggest you just heal his stomach pain for now, if you heal his black eye Joseph will get suspicious.' Rebbie told Michael using telepathy. She was standing across the hall from the stairway._

_Michael took a deep sigh, 'Good call.'_

_He puts his hands on Marlon's stomach and uses his powers to heal his pain. Marlon was passed out._

_Rebbie rushes to help Michael pick Marlon up and carry him to his room._

_The next day all the brothers were at the studio for rehearsal, even Marlon with his black eye. The brothers were mostly quiet about it. They knew how he got it._

_Michael tried avoiding eye-contact with Marlon during the rehearsal. Other than the awkward tension throughout the studio, it was business as usual. They were recording a new song._

_As they're recording, Tito sings off-key during the chorus, and Joseph definitely notices. He storms into the recording booth and slaps Tito in the face. It's hard enough that it sends him staggering, knocking his mic. Michael looks over at the scene,_

_'Maybe I should try it again, I hadn't actually used that power for awhile so maybe I was just rusty…'_

_Mike tries to focus his power and fear on Joseph again. Tito spits in Joseph's face and Joseph slaps him again, this time even harder than before._

_'I don't get it…why isn't it working?!' Michael ends up glaring at Joseph and he notices right away._

_"What the hell are you looking at, boy?!"_

_Michael's wish power then starts working, but this time he mutes the pain Joseph would have felt and just focuses on erasing his memory, he doesn't want his brothers to freak out any more than they already are. Joseph's mind blanks._

_"Huh? What was I just doing?" He looks at Tito and then remembers, he slaps Tito again, the force of the hit leaving a bright red mark. He held his face, trying to suppress the pain. The brothers look at the scene from the corners of their eyes but don't do anything about it, they're too afraid for themselves._

_Mike saw and desperately wanted to help, but didn't want to blow his cover…_

* * *

_After the session the boys went back to the house, they were whispering to each other, except for Michael._

_"Why doesn't Joseph ever hit him anymore?" whispers Jermaine._

_Michael's ears perk up, but he tries to ignore it._

_"He IS the group's golden boy." Whispers Tito. Michael starts walking a little faster._

_"Now that you mention it, Joseph hasn't beaten him in awhile, I wonder why." Whispers Marlon._

_"He probably wants him looking fresh for interviews, can't have any visible bruises." Jackie whispers._

_"And what about what happened at rehearsal earlier, he just totally blanked out after he yelled at him." Tito whispers._

_"Maybe he's getting Alzheimer's or something" Marlon whispers._

_Michael's heard enough of this, he sprints to the house. He lets himself in through the back door, and it's not long before his brothers do the same. Just as Mike is about to go upstairs to his room, his brothers push their way past him, Marlon and Tito giving him death glares on the way up._

_Michael's heartbroken._

* * *

_When he gets to his room, he finds Kyubey waiting for him._

_"So, how was rehearsal?"_

_He scowls at the creature, instead of just telling him about rehearsal, he goes on about what happened the previous day._

_"I tried using my power yesterday to protect Marlon from Joseph, and this evening at rehearsal I tried to use it to protect Tito from being hit too, I don't get it, my fear is supposed to cause Joseph pain, I was properly afraid for them, but it still did nothing!"_

_"You never wished to protect you and your siblings from Joseph, just yourself."_

_Mike's stomach drops. "But…you said my fear would-"_

_"Only if you fear for your own safety, and if Joseph directs his attention toward you. You made that wish for yourself, you never said you wanted to protect your siblings as well."_

_"But…but I meant…"_

_"It doesn't work that way, Michael. You have to say exactly what you want to wish for, and you've already made your wish."_

_He just stares into space, unable to believe what he's heard._

_He quickly turns away and heads down the hall._

* * *

_Rebbie hears a knock on her door. She was reading a book and puts it down_

_"Hey, Rebbie, can I come in?"_

_"Sure, Mike."_

_He opens the door and comes in, his eyes to the floor._

_"What's wrong? Are you ok?"_

_He buries his face in his hands, trying to suppress tears and failing. Rebbie pulls him into a hug._

_"They all hate me, even Marlon. They think I'm Joseph's favorite now or something!"_

_Rebbie sighs and holds him tighter._

_"And…and my wish…"_

_"What about it, what did you wish for?"_

_"I…" He hiccup-sobs and continues,_

_"I wished for Joseph to stop beating me, but before I realized my wish wouldn't work on anyone else but me, I tried to protect Marlon and Tito from being beaten and it didn't work and now they all hate me because they think I'm the favorite!" he sobs into her shoulder, she can see he's freaking out about all this. She wants to do or say something to make him feel better, but isn't sure what to do._

_"What kind of brother am I? I wanted to protect them, but now I can't even do that."_

_"That's not true, Michael." She runs a hand through his hair to try to comfort him._

_"You might not be able to use your wish to protect us, but your power is still a gift, you use that to protect us all the time from witches."_

_"But why can't I use my powers to protect everyone from Joseph?"_

_"Magical skills for Magical ills, Mikey." She smiles but his gloomy expression remains unchanged. She sighs,_

_"Think of it this way, since you used your wish to keep yourself safe from Joseph, it's one less thing to worry about, you can focus on performing and fighting witches and not have to worry about being bogged down by physical abuse."_

_"But how can I feel good about that knowing you guys are all at risk?"_

_"You'll already be doing your job, protecting us from witches. It's not your duty to protect us from Joseph, you have every right to worry about your well being."_

_Mike starts to calm down, Rebbie pats his back._

_"I guess…I guess I just feel like I missed an opportunity to protect you guys even more, I could have wished for so much more…"_

_"Michael, just how did you meet Kyubey exactly?"_

_He tries to remember,_

_"Right after Joseph had beat me, I had run to my room and there he was, ready to grant my wish."_

_Rebbie held him tighter and whispered something under her breath that sounded like "Oh god…"_

_"What is it?"_

_"It's just…that's a really shitty thing for Kyubey to do, take advantage of you at your most vulnerable so you'll make a selfish wish, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with selfish wishes, it's what you do with that power that matters in the long run, but it's so obvious that if you were in a better state of mind, you would have made your wish include everyone."_

_"Exactly!"_

_"But it doesn't matter now, you can't change anything about it, the wish has been granted, but if you really feel that bad about your wish, you can make up for it by fighting for justice, basically what you've been doing this whole time, but with a new outlook, alright?"_

_A little smile forms on his face and he sniffs. "Y-Yeah…I have a question though…"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"Are we affronts to God?"_

_Rebbie gasps at the suggestion._

_"I know it sounds weird, but we have these supernatural powers and-"_

_"How can we be affronts to God?! We do God's work! We protect people from the darkness!"_

_Mike giggles a little at this,_

_"Yeah, you're right."_

_"Don't say anything like that, we have a very important responsibility."_

_With that she lets go of Michael and he goes back to his room. He apologizes to Kyubey for freaking out and goes to bed._


End file.
